Officials at the White House and Commerce Department are publicly expressing worries that economic statistics surveys—in particular a critical survey at the Census Bureau known as the American Community Survey—face a growing risk of cuts.

“The risk is much higher than it has been,” Mark Doms, the undersecretary of Commerce for economic affairs, said at a conference in Washington this week.

Betsey Stevenson, one of three economists on the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the data is critical because “public policy should be evidence-based.” Maintaining the quality of U.S. statistics is “the next great infrastructure challenge in the data age,” she said at the same gathering.

The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey has been “really the only place” to get data about Americans’ marital status, said Betsey Stevenson of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.